this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2025
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Curious how democrats decided to do genocide over obstructing any of the dastardly acts on your list. Is it lost on you how the democrats are controlled opposition?
If, in 20 years, your choice is between a democrat who wants 9 genocides and a republican who wants 10, which would you choose?
won't someone think of the contractual obligations???? 🙀🙀🙀
Let's not pretend that Trump's plan to forcibly remove all Palestinians from Gaza isn't a revival of the same plan put forth by Biden behind closed doors.
The only obligation the US has, under the Leahy Law and International Law, is to cease weapons transfers to Israel for violating human rights and perpetrating crimes against humanity.
Biden is a self proclaimed Zionist, he absolutely supported this genocide, both materially, diplomatically, and ideologically.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/i-am-zionist-how-joe-bidens-lifelong-bond-with-israel-shapes-war-policy-2023-10-21/
https://theintercept.com/2024/10/09/white-house-oct-7-israel-war-gaza/
The one who wants fewer genocides, how is that even a question?
But much better would be using those 20 years to empower progressives at the local level, so they have the experience to get elected to the state level, which gives them the experience to be competitive at the federal level. No one is saying to just support the Dems forever. You can spend 1 day every 4 years helping the Republicans lose, and spend the other 1460 fighting for better options. I recommend it, in fact.
Voting lesser evil slows the descent into fascism while we build the progressive base necessary for a progressive to win the general election. No one is saying the lesser evil is good, we know it's evil, that's why we call it the lesser evil. But it is the lesser evil, and when you have a choice between two evils winning, the lesser evil is preferable.
Voting for a third party with no chance of winning, or not voting at all, does not give us better options. Building a successful third party takes time and many, many wins in smaller elections. Personally, I'd rather spend that time under a neo-liberal regime than a Christofascist one. They're both bad, but one is unambiguously worse.
Vote progressive for every local office you can. If there are no progressive options, consider running yourself or convincing a politically inclined friend to do so. If we all show up for every single election, and flood every level of government with progressives, maybe in 20 years we'll have a better choice than 9 genocides vs 10 genocides. But every Republican win helps gerrymander and disenfranchise us further from that goal.
Surely nobody thought of this 20 years ago when George fucking Bush was in office. Or 40 years ago when Reagan was in office. This idea of pushing the liberal party left and running locally is a totally fresh and original idea and definitely isn't a distraction from organizing the working class into a force of its own which demands concessions from the ruling class at the threat of upheaval.
It's not a new idea, we just haven't been implementing it. And who said anything about pushing the liberal party left? It's not about parties, it's about politicians and their policies. Run third party wherever it's viable, run Democrat where it isn't, it's really not that important what letter is next to your name. What's important is your platform.
That's exactly what I'm suggesting. What is "showing up to every election to vote for progressives" if not organizing the working class? What kind of organization do you think has a lower barrier than voting? If we can't organize the working class to vote one day every couple years, how on Earth do you expect them to jeopardize their safety and livelihoods with more direct action?
And even then, those approaches aren't mutually exclusive. Voting in no way prevents you from organizing. In fact, strategically voting against the fascists explicitly helps the push to organize. It's much easier to protest when the reaction is a smug "I'm talking now", than when the reaction is having your degree retroactively nullified or, y'know, getting deported to an El Salvadorian gulag.
I understand the dissenting opinions, but it’s mind-boggling people can’t grasp this in the modern world. There’s almost 350 million people in the US. It’s impossible to immediately get everyone on the same page and make meaningful change in a short period of time.
If you abstain from voting, you absolutely allow the greater evil to thrive and become worse. Look at the extent that Bush went to after 9/11. No one should want that.